


Extra Cheesy

by mokuyoubi



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Slash, Spacedogs, Spacedogs Appreciation Week, hannigram AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6013357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mokuyoubi/pseuds/mokuyoubi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a tumblr prompt:</p>
<p>Nigel is knocking over the store Adam usually buys his macaroni from. Everything is going according to plan and he starts to leave when SUDDENLY A CUTIE APPEARS.</p>
<p>That's pretty much what this is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extra Cheesy

Knocking over gas stations in Pasadena isn’t really Nigel’s style. There’s a cop car on every fucking corner these days, and the take is never worth it. But the asshole at the counter the other day was more interested in chatting up the pair of tits in line ahead of Nigel than selling him his goddamn cigarettes, and Nigel sees it as an object lesson. Do your fucking job or pay the consequences. 

The guy will thank him for it, though maybe not immediately. 

Or consciously.

Nigel spends a couple days casing the place from his hotel room across the street, taking note of the guy’s schedule and the local foot patrol. It’s a nice neighbourhood; their presence is more about appearance than function. Pacify all the rich fucks who think they’re somehow entitled to better protection. 

They make hourly circuits of the block after dark and occasional appearances throughout the day, but there’s a brief period in the relative quiet that falls shortly before rush hour when they’re nowhere to be seen. The dearth of customers at that time makes for a near perfect opportunity.

Nigel leans against the wall outside, smoking a cigarette and observing the foot traffic. He wears a scarf around the neck to hide his tattoo and tucks all his hair up under a baseball cap, tugs the brim down low over his forehead. Nothing that’s going to attract attention, but an easy disguise to discard after, on the street. 

The only customer leaves and disappears around the corner. Nigel waits a few moments before tossing aside his butt and exhaling a cloud of smoke, then pushes off the wall and heads inside. The guy--Nestor, his nametag reads--barely looks up from where he’s tapping away on his phone, which just makes a hard grin carve across Nigel’s face in anticipation.

He strides up to the counter, draws his gun from his waistband, and taps it twice on the counter, right under the guy’s face. Oh, that’s got his fucking attention. Eyes bulging, sweat breaking out on his brow, he takes a step back and raises his hands.

“D-don’t shoot, man, you can have whatever you want. This job isn’t worth it.”

“Nestor, Nestor,” Nigel draws his name out, calm and quiet, “Nestor. Is that any sort of fucking attitude to have about your place of fucking business?”

Nestor looks up at him with wide eyes. If there are cameras, they won’t see him under his hat, head angled downward, but Nestor can see the look on his face. “S--sorry,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.” He makes an aborted move towards the cash register before freezing. “Sorry.”

“It’s an important life skill, being a big enough man to apologise when you’ve done something wrong,” Nigel purrs. He reaches for his crumpled pack of smokes in his back pocket, goes to tap one out only to find it empty, and gestures to the wall. “Give me a pack of the Lucky Strikes.” 

After the other day, when Nestor couldn’t be fucked to help, it’s really fucking gratifying how quickly he rushes to comply. Nigel takes his time lighting up, drawing a deep lungful of smoke, and idly letting it stream from his lips before he continues.

“It’s real fucking good, Nestor. But do you know what’s more important?”

Nestor shakes his head, lips trembling in fear, shoulders hunched over to make him look smaller. He’s about thirty seconds away from shitting himself, and Nigel can’t help but smile at that as he takes another drag. He leans over the counter, letting the smoke billow in the boy’s face, lifting the gun to trace along Nestor’s jaw as he speaks. “Accounta-fuckin’-bility, Nestor, that’s what.”

“Accountability,” Nestor echoes, in fervent agreement, though Nigel wouldn’t be a bit surprised to know the guy wasn’t absorbing a single word.

Nigel hops up on the counter, letting the gun rest at his side, but ready to lift it at the first sign of trouble. “You gotta develop a work ethic, whether you’re the sad fuck who’s cleaning piss and blood off the walls outside the pub, or you’re pedaling someone else’s shit and having to fork over all the cash and goods at the end of the night, or if you’re paid to off some poor asshole for a living. You gotta take pride in what you’re doing. Do you understand what I’m saying, Nestor?”

“P-p-pride,” he says, with a nod of his head.

“That’s right,” Nigel tells him cheerfully, letting his cigarette hang from the corner of his mouth and patting the guy on the cheek. “Because if you don’t, what’s the fuckin’ point? You do your job half-assed, you’re just gonna ruin everyone else’s goddamn day. Might as well just sit around like a sack of shit at home. Might as well just fuck off and die and stop wasting everyone else’s time, right, Nestor?”

Nestor swallows hard, eyes darting over Nigel’s face in something like recognition. Maybe Nigel underestimated him. Maybe he’s got a clue, after all. “Right,” he says, voice nothing more than a whisper.

“So what are we going to do about your attitude?” Nigel asks. He slides back to his feet, lets the gun tap rhythmically against his thigh and pretends to consider it.

“Am I--I’m really confused here,” Nestor says. “Am I supposed to tell you to go to hell or something? Because, I mean, you have a gun…”

Nigel sighs and closes his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s a sad fucking day when the gas and gulp cashier is more spineless than fucking Charlie goddamn Countryman. “Pride in your work,” he repeats. He pauses, and opens his mouth to further explain, when the bell on the door rings.

They turn as one to watch the man enter. A pretty young thing who looks like he doesn’t belong in this godforsaken city--sweet curls and pink cheeks, and lips Nigel can’t help but imagine wrapped around his dick. The two of them are frozen, waiting for his reaction, but he doesn’t even seem to notice there’s a hold-up going on. He just turns down the first aisle and bee-lines it to the frozen food section in the back. 

Nigel looks back at Nestor with a raised brow and Nestor shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know man, the guy is some sort of special-ed,” Nestor says.

Nigel slams the gun down on the counter with enough force to make Nestor jump a few feet in the air. “Now, Nestor, that’s a shitty fucking thing to say.”

“I’m sorry,” Nestor babbles, drawing in on himself. “He’s just weird--I mean, I’m sorry, oh fuck. He won’t look you in the eye and all he ever fucking buys is mac and cheese and orange soda, and he dresses like that.” He waves in the general direction of the freezers.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Nigel says, pitching his voice low. “That man is your fucking customer. Treat him with some goddamn respect.”

The kid comes up behind him like he’s queuing in a fucking line or something, and his eyes widen comically when he gets a proper look at them. Fucking gorgeous eyes, at that--bright blue, or--Nigel squints at him--are they green? It’s hard to say, because just as Nestor said, he’s looking anywhere but Nigel’s face.

“Oh,” he says, staring at his shoes. “Um. I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

The kid takes a step forward, then a step back, then just stands there for a minute before finally walking around Nigel to place the stack of Amy’s Organic Macaroni and Cheese on the counter. Fucking organic mac and cheese in a gas station, for fuck’s sake. Only in LA.

“Um, is it alright if I just leave?” he asks, gaze fixed on Nigel’s shoulder even as he starts a not so subtle scoot towards the door.

Nigel takes a step closer and the kid goes still. “You’re forgetting your mac ‘n cheese, kid.”

“Oh,” he says again. God _damn_ if that isn’t a nice mouth, pursed up to form the word. He looks honestly conflicted for a moment before coming to some sort of resolution. “I can buy it somewhere else.” He says it more to himself than to either of them.

Nigel is intrigued. He pinches off the cherry of his cigarette and flicks it aside. “What’s your name, kid?”

The kid’s eyes take in the gun, Nestor cowering behind the counter, and flick back to Nigel. His hands clench into fists and release at his side. “I’m Adam,” he says at last. “And I’m not a kid. I’m thirty-two.”

“I’m sorry, Adam,” Nigel says and leans in a little, trying in vain to meet the kid’s--because he’s still a decade younger than Nigel, for fuck’s sake--eye. “Do you understand what’s going on here?”

Adam gives him a truly withering look. Nigel is seriously fucking impressed by the heat in it. “You’re holding up a convenience store,” he snaps. 

“I appreciate the pair of balls you’ve got, kid, sassing the guy with the gun.”

“Sorry,” Adam says to his toes, but he doesn’t look or sound especially sincere in his apology, only frightened. “I was just stating the obvious.”

Nigel laughs. “I _like_ you, kid.” To his credit, Adam doesn’t flinch when Nigel puts an arm around his shoulders, though his muscles tense under the touch, his lips pursed in distaste, whether from the touch or being called ‘kid,’ it’s hard to say. “Go ahead, take your mac ‘n cheese, and get out of here.”

“But--” Adam glances in Nestor’s direction and he looks scandalised at the idea. “You mean not _pay_ for it?”

“Adam, angel, as you so fucking succinctly put it, this is a hold up,” Nigel says. “During a hold up, you take whatever the fuck you want.” He waves the gun at the stack of macaroni and cheese. “Go ahead.”

There’s a serious fucking war waging inside the kid, Nigel can see it as plain as day on his face. Something far more disturbing to him than the guy with the loaded gun and the crime in progress. Something that almost causes him physical pain when he finally shakes his head, bites his lip, and says, “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just leave.”

Nigel’s brows lift high on his forehead in surprise. He waves his gun in the direction of the door, and watches Adam duck out, dumbfounded. And fucking smitten. He’s man enough to admit it. 

“You know what, never mind the cash drawer.” Nigel taps his gun on the pile of frozen meals. “I’ll just take these. Be a doll and bag ‘em up for me, will ya?”

Nestor hops to, snapping open one of the cloth bags hanging from the counter, and begins to neatly stack the mac and cheese inside. He goes still when Nigel leans over the counter, wraps a hand around his neck, and puts his mouth to Nestor’s ear. “I really hope you’ve taken what I’ve said to heart, Nestor. I’d hate to have to visit you again. At home, this time? 2209 Harris, where you live with your mother?”

“I have, sir,” Nestor sputters, “absolutely.”

Nigel gives him a bright smile. “Terrific. Then as long as you shut the fuck up and do your job right from now on, you and I can be friends. Would you like that, Nestor?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Nestor says.

“Oh good,” Nigel purrs, patting him a couple of times before straightening up and taking the bag from him. 

He’s out the door and almost to the corner before a thought occurs to him. He curses out loud and turns around, heading back to the shop. Nestor stands in the same position Nigel left him, and when he sees Nigel, his shoulders rise up and he lifts his hands again. “I didn’t call anyone,” he says in a rush. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

Nigel waves off his concerns and fishes in his back pocket for his wallet. “Look, I should probably get a receipt for these, so can you just ring it up, so I can prove to the kid I didn’t steal these?”

Nestor lets out a little snort, then another, and then it devolves into hysterical laughter. Nigel sighs, taps his fingers on the counter, and says, “Don’t make me take out the gun, again, Nestor.”

Very quickly Nestor straightens up and goes to the register. He taps for a moment and brings up the total. “It’s, uh, 43.75, uh, sir.”

Nigel’s jaw drops, cigarette nearly falling from his mouth. “Forty-fucking-three dollars? For five boxes of macaroni and fucking cheese? Is it made with actual fucking gold?”

Nestor raises both hands in the air, a clear _don’t ask me_ gesture. “Organic food, man.”

“Christ on a fucking cracker you’ve got to be fucking…” He rifles through his wallet and pulls out a fifty. “Just keep the fucking change,” he snaps, and all but rips the receipt from Nestor’s hand. He’s not sure which of them finds the whole scenario more surreal, at this point, now that he’s just given money to the guy he was holding up.

Outside, he wraps the gun in his scarf, tucks them both in the baseball cap, and throws the bundle in the nearest trashcan. It doesn’t take too long for him to catch up with the kid. When he was casing the place, he saw him pass once or twice, at a distance, knows which way to look for him.

He jogs around the corner and into the park across the street, where he spots the red and beige striped cardigan Adam was wearing. Nigel follows him through the park and down a couple of blocks, until he heads up the walkway of a quaint little craftsman bungalow. Figures the kid would be loaded.

It’s a nice looking place, a squat two-story house surrounded by towering oaks. Cute little covered porch, complete with swing. The gabled second floor bay window centred over top offers a glimpse inside, where a telescope is pointed up at the sky.

Nigel strolls up the path, taking in the neatly maintained lawn and perfectly weeded garden. It’s dotted through with hand-made stepping stones, each bearing a different intricately designed representations of the planets of the solar system in glass mosaic, the names written in a painstakingly neat hand. If he weren’t already ridiculously captivated by the kid, this might have done the trick.

Leaning on the doorjamb, he raps his knuckles against the panel of the door. The windows are covered with curtains, obstructing his view of the entranceway. Where a moment before he could hear someone moving around, there is now nothing but silence. Nigel waits patiently, and after a moment, footsteps hesitantly approach on wooden floors.

As Adam opens the front door, Nigel pastes on his most charming, ingratiating smile. There is a furrow between Adam’s brows as he stares at Nigel. “What are you doing here?” he asks, immediately swinging the door most of the way closed. There’s a nervous energy about him that Nigel finds oddly alluring.

Nigel hefts the bag of macaroni and cheese between them, letting it dangle from one finger, and arches a brow. “Can I treat you to dinner?” 

Adam crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t need someone to steal for me,” he says. “I can afford to buy my own food. I have a very good job, I can take care of myself, I--” Suddenly, he stops himself, biting his lip, and Nigel can’t help arching a brow.

“I have no doubt of that, darling,” Nigel says. “But it’s my fault you couldn’t buy them, in the first place.”

“I can buy them somewhere else,” Adam says. There’s a rebellious tone to his voice that neither one of them is buying. 

Nigel isn’t entirely sure what’s going on with the kid, but he knows Adam _didn’t_ stop anywhere else on the way home. There’s no car in the driveway, and he’s already taken off his shoes and sweater, clearly settling in for the evening. Nigel holds up his free hand in a gesture of peace and speaks in tone meant to soothe. “I’m sure you can. But just for tonight, indulge me?”

“Stealing is wrong,” Adam tells him. It sounds more like a statement of fact than a moral judgement, which sparks Nigel’s interest even more. And the kid’s posture is relaxing, shoulders dropping slowly, arms loosening from their tight clenched position.

Nigel fumbles in his pocket for the crumpled receipt, and smooths out the wrinkles before handing it over. “Bought and paid for.”

Adam takes the receipt and stares at it, uncomprehending. Nigel can trace the thoughts racing across his features, but has no idea what’s going on inside that head. Over Adam’s shoulder he can see into a beautifully decorated home, everything neatly in it’s place. There’s only one jacket hanging from the peg on the hall tree, one pair of shoes tucked into the cubby beneath.

“Traditionally, when someone brings you dinner, you let them inside,” Nigel says.

“Traditionally,” Adam says, head tilted to the side in thoughtfulness as he stares at Nigel’s shoulder, “you build a relationship by spending time together and sharing common interests.” He stops, looking down at his fidgeting hands, grasping his own fingertips. When he speaks again, it’s clear a repetition of words someone else has told him. “It’s rude to just show up at someone’s house uninvited.”

Nigel heaves a sigh and straightens up from his slouch, smile falling from his face. He supposes it’s better than he could have honestly hoped for--at least the kid didn’t slam the door in his face and run, and he isn’t threatening to call the cops and turn him in. He takes a step back, puts the bag on the welcome mat, and gives a little bow. “It was interesting meeting you.”

“But we haven’t met,” Adam says. “Not properly, anyway. You’re supposed to say your name and extend your hand for a handshake. Eye contact is important to convey honesty and respect.”

Nigel, hesitating the top stair, steps closer. “Very well,” he says. He extends his hand and only has to wait a moment before Adam reaches out to take it. His hand feels delicate in Nigel’s, his grip overly tight. “My name is Nigel.”

Adam’s eyes light on his jaw and ear, over the line of his cheekbone and brow, before finally meeting Nigel’s own. It’s brief, but he flashes a smile that makes Nigel’s breath catch in his chest, his fingers tighten around Nigel’s and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nigel.”

“Believe me,” Nigel murmurs, turning Adam’s hand palm down, and lifting it to his lips to brush a kiss along the knuckles. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Adam turns a lovely shade of red, chin ducking to his chest, and pulls his hand back, clasping it behind his back, the very enticing picture of untouched innocence. It’s clear winning this kid over is going to take up a lot of Nigel’s time and energy, and he finds he doesn’t mind in the least. His fingers twitch at his side, restraining himself from reaching out to trace the line of the blush down Adam’s neck, where it disappears into the collar of his buttondown. He’ll be worth the effort.

“Enjoy your dinner, Adam,” Nigel says. Adam bites his lip, still half-hiding behind the door, and Nigel turns away. He’s halfway down the front walk when Adam calls after him.

“Wait!” Nigel glances over his shoulder, half-turning to face him, schooling his triumphant expression into one of mild curiosity. Adam hovers in the doorway for a moment before coming out onto the porch. His fingers are tapping absently against his thighs as he stands there, uncertain. “Do--do you like outer space?”

As far as non sequitors go, Nigel’s heard stranger. He turns fully around and takes a few steps back. “I guess,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I never thought about it very much.”

“I work in an observatory--the Mount Wilson Observatory, in the San Gabriel Mountains? There have been a great many astronomical discoveries made there. For instance, Edwin Hubble was able to use the one-hundred inch Hooker telescope to prove that the Andromeda nebulae were outside our galaxy--that is, the Milky Way.”

Adam’s face lights up as he speaks, full of a youthful exuberance that makes it difficult to believe the kid is out of his teens, let alone in his thirties. He rambles on for another several minutes about the other scientific contributions of the observatory while Nigel waits attentively, if a bit bewildered.

Finally, Adam stops short, as if catching himself, and says more quietly, “Now the smog and light pollution in Los Angeles limit the observation of deep space.”

“That seems like a shame,” Nigel says. He’s more saying what he thinks the kid wants to hear but Adam accepts it as sincerity. 

“It is,” Adam agrees. “Now the telescopes are mostly used to public viewing.” 

And suddenly, Nigel sees where he’s going with this, and his grin is back in full force, sly and pleased. “Adam,” he purrs, “are you inviting me on a date to the observatory?”

“It’s not a date,” Adam says, and it’s hard to take offense when he says it in a matter-of-fact way like that. “I don’t date men. I’m heterosexual.”

“Ah.” Nigel wonders how long that will last, but he’s up for the challenge. That will only make it all the more satisfying when Adam gives in. “Just two friends, then. Spending time together and sharing common interests?”

Adam nods, a smile gracing those sweet lips, brightening his eyes, which are definitely blue in the sunlight. “Well, in that case,” Nigel says, “how could I refuse?”


End file.
